Idea of Matching Grants for Arts Stirs Enthusiasm

Several arts leaders in Orange County reacted favorably Friday to the $1.1-million “California Challenge Program” proposed by Gov. George Deukmejian in his request for a California Arts Council budget of $15.7 million for fiscal 1988-89.

The challenge program would provide 3-1 matching grants to arts organizations looking for ways to pay for specific projects but would require them to raise new money from private sources.

The organizations must have annual budgets of $200,000 to qualify for the program.

“It’s very good for us,” said Louis G. Spisto, executive director of the Pacific Symphony. “It will enable us to rally some corporate and individual support with the council’s stamp of approval. A grant for a project will focus attention on it.”

David DiChiera, general director of Opera Pacific, concurred: “It could be a very useful opportunity for us, particularly because we’re an emerging institution. A challenge grant is very rigorous, and getting one is a good indication of your fiscal responsibility and managerial skill. It can make the difference in some new initiative.”

But David Emmes, producing director of South Coast Repertory, had mixed feelings. While SCR will probably apply for a matching grant “since that’s the mechanism the council will use to expand support for the arts,” Emmes said he would have preferred to see an increase in non-matching funds.

“Direct grants are woefully underfunded,” Emmes argued. “To have a challenge component in the council budget is fine, but it’s a lower priority for the arts community than getting an increase in regular, direct funding.”

Emmes worried that organizations already able to raise funds privately would tend to dominate the matching program, because less experienced groups might lack the know-how to exploit the matching grant’s leverage.

But it is precisely the possibility of leverage that excited DiChiera, Spisto and John Larry Granger, conductor of the South Coast Symphony.

“It would let us go to a corporation and say, ‘If you give us money, we can get the grant,’ ” Granger noted.

Lyn Sequist, administrator of the Laguna Art Museum, agreed. “A matching grant would give us the chance to go for something we might not try otherwise,” she said.

Meanwhile, the matching grants are already a hit at the Grove Theater.

“We have just sent the council a letter for an application,” managing director Richard Stein said. “We thoroughly embrace the idea.”

The governor’s proposed arts budget contains a “challenge.” Calendar, Page 1.